Jatropha sustainability assessment, data from Tanzania, Mali & Mozambique

This report is the result of a jatropha sustainability study that was commissioned by NL Agency as part of its renewable energy support programme titled “Netherlands Programmes for Sustainable Biomass” (NPSB). Staff from three Dutch universities with complementary expertise – UU/Copernicus Institute, WUR-PRI and TU/e - were requested to design a format for data gathering from jatropha projects funded by Dutch programmes - and possibly also by others - that would be comprehensive and yet practically applicable. The aim was to enable a uniform way of data collection about the projects’ people-planet-profit sustainability performance and the key barriers experienced by them in achieving their envisaged goals. The designed format contains agronomic, economic, social and some ecological information, thus covering a broad set of sustainability performance dimensions. Separate modules were developed for (large) integrated plantation projects and oil processors on the one hand, and (small-scale) cultivators/outgrowers on the other. A separate module aimed at eliciting in-depth agronomic information about individual cultivation fields was also developed. The format was applied in three countries: Tanzania, Mali and Mozambique. In each country a local organization was subcontracted to execute the actual data collection. The ultimate goal of the exercise is to help increase sustainability and financial feasibility of jatropha projects that are currently being implemented, and at the same time disseminate lessons.